Home roast coffee is just one of the joys of home made food. We make our own Kimchi from scratch now, grind our own wheat, make bread from scratch, and the same wheat is used to make pizza from scratch. We are even growing some basil. It really becomes a matter of how serious you are about food in general, and then how you fit coffee into that.

Pizza Hut or homemade from scratch? Instant, or the best you can squeeze from fresh, quality beans. if it doesn't matter to you, then why are you here? (rhetorical question aimed at no one in particular at all).

Home roast coffee is just one of the joys of home made food. We make our own Kimchi from scratch now, grind our own wheat, make bread from scratch, and the same wheat is used to make pizza from scratch. We are even growing some basil. It really becomes a matter of how serious you are about food in general, and then how you fit coffee into that.

Pizza Hut or homemade from scratch? Instant, or the best you can squeeze from fresh, quality beans. if it doesn't matter to you, then why are you here? (rhetorical question aimed at no one in particular at all).

Hello Randy. My wife and I make our own sauercraut from scratch. My father used to make big crocks of it from cabbage we used to grow and I have kind of continued the tradition on a smaller scale. I have never made kimchi, but understand there is a similiar fermentation process going on. Do you have a good recipe you can share on making it from scratch? I'd enjoy making it.

Len

"Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water." ~The Women's Petition Against Coffee, 1674

I'll trade recipes with you. We have been talking about making sauerkraut. Kimchi has a lot of variations. We do not use fish sauce, making a vegan alternative. But like Sauerkraut, kimchi is made with fermented cabbage. Napa cabbage is used, cut up into 'bite-sized" pieces and soaked in brine (half cup of pickling salt in about 12 cups of water) for a few hours or even a day. Red pepper flakes (coarse-ground red pepper works fine), ginger, garlic, green onion (including the greens) and daikon raddish. Some recipes call for an apple or a pear, diced, or you can use sugar. There are endless variations. The pepper is soaked in enough water to cover to make a sort of paste. Mix in chopped garlic, sugar and ginger with the pepper. Mix all ingredients well, and pack in mason jars. Pack down and add some fresh brine solution to cover ingredients. Cap tightly and store in a cool place for a day or two or more. Refrigerate before opening and open carefully as contents will be under pressure. We found that being sure that there is sufficient liquid to cover the ingredients in the jar before capping to be critical. If the Kimchi smells like chlorine or anything bad when opened, it has gone bad.

Kimchi is a fantastic aid to digestion and regularity. We put it on tofu, baked potatoes, rice, and other such dishes.

Fermented foods have to a great extent been lost in western culture. When visiting my grand mother in the Fairfax district, my brother and I would always walk to Canter's Deli and get a Kosher dill pickle from the big oak barrel and eat it on the way home.

I recently watched a you tube video about making coffee from a stovetop java pot. I was trying to get some hints since I do it occasionally.

The author of the video showed his decades old java pot which he didn't believe in washing. It was filthy and disgusting looking.

He then filled it with pre-ground coffee and heated it.

He went on to tell viewers how this was the only real way to make Italian "espresso".

I think he was a real believer and I don't fault his opinion or methods at all- if he's happy with it and thinks it's the best thing on earth I'm happy for him.

For me, I don't think his methods would make me an enjoyable cup of "espresso".

On the flip-side what I produce from my grinder/machine might not make something that you'd like.

I'm thinking that if you're happy with your pre-ground Illy (I use this occasionally for pour-over) then stick with it and save yourself the expense of a grinder. You can buy a lot of coffee for what a grinder will cost you if you personally don't prefer fresh-ground coffee.

Hope it all works out, whatever your choice. I guess I'm one of those folks who fell for it though and ended up with a grinder that was more expensive than my machine.

I'll trade recipes with you. We have been talking about making sauerkraut. Kimchi has a lot of variations. We do not use fish sauce, making a vegan alternative. But like Sauerkraut, kimchi is made with fermented cabbage. Napa cabbage is used, cut up into 'bite-sized" pieces and soaked in brine (half cup of pickling salt in about 12 cups of water) for a few hours or even a day. Red pepper flakes (coarse-ground red pepper works fine), ginger, garlic, green onion (including the greens) and daikon raddish. Some recipes call for an apple or a pear, diced, or you can use sugar. There are endless variations. The pepper is soaked in enough water to cover to make a sort of paste. Mix in chopped garlic, sugar and ginger with the pepper. Mix all ingredients well, and pack in mason jars. Pack down and add some fresh brine solution to cover ingredients. Cap tightly and store in a cool place for a day or two or more. Refrigerate before opening and open carefully as contents will be under pressure. We found that being sure that there is sufficient liquid to cover the ingredients in the jar before capping to be critical. If the Kimchi smells like chlorine or anything bad when opened, it has gone bad.

Kimchi is a fantastic aid to digestion and regularity. We put it on tofu, baked potatoes, rice, and other such dishes.

Fermented foods have to a great extent been lost in western culture. When visiting my grand mother in the Fairfax district, my brother and I would always walk to Canter's Deli and get a Kosher dill pickle from the big oak barrel and eat it on the way home.

Kosher Dill Pickle Recipe (we make this all the time and it is absolutely incredible):

24 small cukes (gherkins) washed thoroughtly and prickers removed if on them. Slice a tiny bit of end off each one9 Cups of boiling water14 whole peppercorns (then crushed)2 heads of garlic, peeled and each head crushed5 leafy branches of fresh dill, washed8 crushed bay leaves8 tablespoons non-iodized salt

Get a food grade 5 gallon plastic bucket, bleached out and then rinsed. Get the lid and cut in still retaining circle, but making it smaller to fit down to about 1/4 of the way up the bucket.

Put all ingredients (except boiling water) into bucket, cukes first then everything else on top. Pour water just off of bowl on top of foodstuffs in bucket. If you need more water to cover (and then some to have it about 1 inch above foodstuffs) then boil more water and add. Please adjust salt and other ratios to retain proper proportions (salt is most critical).

Put cut out lid on top of mixture and set in place in house that is around 68 degrees F. Weight down cut out lid with a closed container of water to keep foodstuffs under the mix. Shake bucket a bit to allow any trapped air to escape. Cover bucket with a doubled over thick towel.

Check the bucket liquid at least ever 2 days (or every day) to see if any "scum" starts forming on top of liquid. Spoon off the scum. Every two days take container of water out and lift up cut out circle to inspect cucumbers and mix. The cukes will start taking on a different color (more yello green-like) and the garlic will turn blue in spots. This is ok. If you see obvious degradation of cukes (like they are rotting) then something is amiss and you should throw that cuke away. After about 4 days you can take out a cuke and see if it has gone half-sour let (these are great). Typically the fermentation process is over in a week. You may see some bubbles forming along the way around the edges of the mix.

Before putting the plastic lid back on top of mixture give it a quick rinse in water. Same with container with water in it. This will rinse off any bacteria.

What will happen is that the mix will create a natural preservative (lactic acid) and stop bad bacteria from forming (the salt also helps in this).

You can bottle up the cukes any time past the half sour stage. Just use cleaned sterilized mason jars (quart jars are best). Take out cukes and put into the jars, then fill to top using strained mixture liquid. That's it! (don't boil liquid before hand and don't add anything else to it). Then just refrigerate (we do not process them as the fridge keeps them from going bad for about a month, and processing them destroys the really good flavor and texture).

The above recipe is off the top of my head. The saurcraut one I have to get out of our recipe drawer; the salt ratio is pretty critical in that one because of the much longer fermentation process.

Len

"Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water." ~The Women's Petition Against Coffee, 1674

"Coffee leads men to trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick, nasty, bitter, stinking nauseous puddle water." ~The Women's Petition Against Coffee, 1674

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